


The Yellow Wood

by the_song_you_gave_me



Series: Brick in the Wall [3]
Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, BRIGGS Patricia - Works, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: F/M, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 17:32:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15029639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_song_you_gave_me/pseuds/the_song_you_gave_me
Summary: Bran invites the Tri-Cities pack back into his domain, but is his guarantee of protection as sure-fire as they all want to believe?





	The Yellow Wood

**Author's Note:**

> I warned you: Non-canon death ahead

Bran slows to a halt, sniffing the air. It doesn’t matter how much the deer’s scent makes him salivate with the enticing promise of a hunt, the spine tingling unease running down the fur on his back takes precedent. Until now, he could not understand what had his wolf up in arms on a day that was supposed to be easy, a welcome respite from the usual pressures brought on by pack business. The weight of the forest suddenly falls on him. A prescient tremor of dread shakes through his being, tingling with magic. _Witch._

For once, he feels inclined to listen to his wolf.

The deafening roar of a spell hits, and his wolf howls in silent anguish. His mate, the wolf’s mate, Leah—was gone from his bonds. He finds himself running to where he felt her presence last.

Disturbed by the brief few seconds of time he lost to the monster grieving inside him, Bran heaves a deeper breath of bittersweet remorse. He sprints on four feet through the trees into the thick cloud of buzzing magic that blanketed the forest. His hackles fully raised, he fights to keep control of the wolf.

He knew the day would come, had planned for it when he picked Leah to be his wife more than a century ago. At least on that day he would no longer cause her pain. His wolf does not care though and will not be consoled by the man regaining his thoughts to secure his sense of self. Bran runs faster through the trees. The speed does nothing to quell the monster’s rage.

He smells blood as he races over a ridge and hears Adam’s wolf panting heavily. Bran quietly slides down the forest floor of leaves and other matter, coming to a stop. The stench of fear and anger overpowers the air around the shaded clearing up ahead, all of it coming from the wounded Columbia Basin Alpha. Underneath that, Bran can taste the lingering magic, witchcraft magic. It makes him sick. He catches sight of the clearing, and a weight drops in his stomach.

In one direction as far as the eye can see, a large, suspended circle of eeriness cuts through the trunks of the trees, its edge sharp like a cookie-cutter. The branches on either side of it are green and yellow with the colors of late summer, but for a good twenty feet diameter- all the foliage inside the circle is dead. In the direct line of the bottom of the circle, even with the ground, Bran sees them there: two wolves lie in a carpet of rotted leaves on the forest floor. Adam’s wolf heaves in rapid breaths, his chest rising and falling too fast and rough to be in good shape. Leah’s golden body lies still.

Bran paces quietly into the clearing. He wills his body not to tremble with the force it takes to hold the monster back. In spite of himself, Bran takes the time to shift back into human form, one further defense against his wolf. Shaking his head with the last of the quick change, he refuses to process any other emotion other than his need to see, to solve, to think this all through.

Bran passes Adam to go stand over his mate, completely ignoring the silver-blue wolf. The circle of magic they lie in smells of death. Cautiously, Bran kneels before Leah, reaching out a hand to touch her silky-soft fur. He bows his head and his lip curls involuntarily. The pulse of blood no longer flows through her body. No breath draws into his mate's lungs. Leah’s dead.

Adam growls. Lost to his injured wolf, he snarls at Bran who violently rises to a stand. Too close, the blue wolf complains.

Bran ignores him. It takes more strength than the Marrok likes to admit, keeping the monster within him from lashing out at a single, pain-crazed Alpha. Hurting the weak in misdirected anger never accomplished anything, he reminds himself. Instead, Bran stares into the long, eerie pipeline of dead trees.

 _It was a magical attack turned West-Northwest._ Bran projects his thoughts to his son Charles. _Smells like witchcraft and powerful death magic._ Through the pack bonds, he feels Charles’ shock at Leah’s death press in concern for him. Briefly, in the background, Bran senses Leah’s loss riveting through the rest of the Marrok pack in Aspen Creek. It makes him uneasy, not knowing if the other packs outside Montana could feel her loss too. But that would take too much energy to parse out from the bonds just now. He needs to focus and save his energy to hold back his wolf. Otherwise, any further surprises might just send him over the edge.

What if this attack wasn’t just a one-time thing? Bran freezes at the thought, bracing himself to consider that he just might die at any moment. All it would take would be for the death spell to strike in the same place again. The pungent stench of magic, combined with the range it had to travel, if that dead space of trees was any indication… Bran wasn’t sure he could withstand this curse if it struck again.

Wait, but how was Adam still alive? Bran looks over to the struggling wolf, still unable to move, let alone stand. The Marrok flexes his fingers, and stares back into the dead trees. Whoever was behind this… could they aim this attack and move the beam to harm his town? For that matter, did their first strike hit anyone else in Aspen Creek? Bran rifles through the pack bonds, carefully, trying not to rush or injure anyone, he makes sure they were all there. Yes, he confirms, closing the bonds down again, all of them there- all except for Leah.

His hand jerks into a fist as he strives not to lose any more time to his beast. He can feel Charles nagging at his senses as Anna’s bond to him whines, trying to offer him her peace. _I’m okay._ He tells his son and daughter-in-law, though Charles would call out the lie. Bran knows well enough that his control was shaky at best right now. This could not go on. He sighs, then he stretches through the more ancient family pack bonds to find his firstborn son.

 _I’m handing the packs over to Samuel for now,_ He tells Charles and Anna, _Just in case anything happens. Charles, don’t complain. I want you free of any extra responsibility so that you can focus on what needs to be done here._

Bran could trust his son to make the right decisions. They never had to talk about or even mention such things explicitly.

 

 

Mercy scampers over a log, Adam’s pain still racketing through her mating bond. She left Charles and Anna behind with Darryl and Auriele as soon as Adam got hit. Charles shifted back to human and called after her, but it didn’t matter. Adam was hurt and she needed to be there with him.

At the top of the ridge, she smells Adam’s blood and promptly trips down the slope, gracefully sliding through the dead leaves. So much for being an accomplished predator. At the base of the ridge, an itch rubs at her senses and she scratches behind her ear with a back paw. Then more familiar scents reach her nose, and she has to freeze.

She smells Leah, surrounded by magic and death. But that’s not the scent she’s worried about most. Her coyote gives a soft whine. Adam lies panting on the ground, coughing up blood between warbling, low growls. Behind him, Bran stands in his human form, slender and unassuming, looking into a weird circle of magic cut through the trees. The Marrok turns his head back down to the body of Leah’s golden wolf, looking for all the world like he’d only missed out on watching the opening pitch of a baseball game. Mercy ducks her head closer to the ground though, for Bran’s aura soaks into the air like a choking, perilous fog.

The promise of rage and vengeance hides in the tone of those bare, relaxed shoulders. Paws lying down on the ground, Mercy exposes her throat in submission. Sometimes it wasn’t worth it to mess with the beast.

“Mercedes?” Bran asks in a soft rasp. He whispers, “Leah’s dead.” 

She knows she’s in trouble now. Bran only used that Welsh lilt when he was either really upset or amused, and she didn’t think there was anything funny about this. She looks up briefly, long enough to catch the warm hazel color of Bran’s eyes. Good, that meant his wolf wasn’t ascendant, so they weren’t all dead yet. Mercy ducks her head again, giving another soft whine. She could smell Bran’s sorrow from here, but she needed to get to Adam.

When in doubt, use your words, she thinks. Mercy glides into her human form, keeping herself in a kneeling crouch low to the ground. “Bran, Adam’s hurt. Can I come closer?” she asks as polite as possible, trying everything in her power not to question the authority of the big bad wolf. Something tells her that Bran needed all the help he could get right now. Adam’s growls grow louder, more pronounced.

“Yes, yes of course.” Bran admonishes softly, turning his head back to the weird circle cut through the trees. Mercy scrambles to the side of her fallen mate, still staying as low to the ground as she can. Adam thrashes about, trying to stand, but falls back on his side in the dirt and leaves.

“Adam? Adam, it’s me. Stay down, please.” She has to rethink, stupid of her to try and order a werewolf around when he’s injured. Adam’s wolf snaps at her. The snarl that rips from Bran’s throat in response echoes through the woods. Mercy’s heart rate shoots through the roof, waiting for death to claw into them from above. Great, now she smells like panic and prey.

She opens her eyes. Adam lies still and flat on the ground, his yellow eyes bright but cowed, avoiding the Marrok to look at her instead. Mercy sneaks a glance to see Bran has not moved, his sandy head bowed. Adam coughs up more blood that looks so dark it’s almost black. It stinks like a witch.

Mercy reaches out her hand to run it through the fur behind Adam’s ears. He lets her, with no more than a soft, grumpy growl. “What’s happening to you?” Mercy whispers, knowing that Adam cannot speak in this form, though she reaches toward him through their mating bond. She gets an idea. “Adam, can you shift? It might help you heal.”

Adam only looks at her with more pain in his eyes, a sort of resigned… panic. Inside herself, Mercy roars. She doesn’t like that look from her Alpha. Not from her mate either.

“What about the pack? You can use my energy to heal. Darryl and Auriele are here too. We can help you.” She struggles to keep her fingers steady, softly stroking Adam’s blue-silver fur, gentle so as not to cause any more pain or damage to his shuddering body.

She growls, “Come on, Adam!” Frustration tinges her voice. She won’t panic. She won’t. Fuck it.

“Bran?” Mercy voices, not needing to call any louder. She doesn’t want to ask him when she can’t trust his control right now, but at least he’d been silent through Adam’s quiet growls. The Marrok shows no response, no movement at all.

“Bran, can you do something? I don’t know the first thing about witchcraft or how to help a werewolf heal here. Please, can you help us?” She asks, alternating her gaze between Bran’s back and Adam’s pain-filled yellow eyes.

The Marrok’s scent washes over her then, that sweet-and-salty zip under a strong mint and musk smell of werewolf. Bran kneels close to the bleeding wolf, holding a hand out over Adam’s heaving chest. Mercy jolts herself still, trying not to suddenly draw back from the power ebbing off Bran’s skin.

She breathes deep to calm herself. Her fear won’t help either of the two wolves so close by her. Adam rustles on the ground, struggling to get up under Mercy’s touch, his growls growing louder.

“Quiet, wolf.” The Marrok rumbles. The blue wolf lies still, trembling with pain and stress. Mercy keeps her eyes on Adam, smoothing the fur on his neck.

 “He’s not healing on his own.” Bran states, his voice back to the deceptively soft calm she’s more used to hearing, though a markedly Welsh lilt still comes through. Bran sighs, “He’s not pack either, otherwise I could do more to help him. Although…” Bran pauses.

Adam’s rasping breaths fill the stillness.

“Interesting.” Bran’s voice quirks, though nothing about him hints any sign of emotion.

Mercy breathes again, willing herself not to worry.

The Marrok tilts his gaze to her, “Adam may not be mine, but you are. I might be able to do something through your bond to him.”

She jerks her head up to Bran, taking in the gold-flecked hazel of his eyes before dropping her glance down to Adam. The Marrok’s power draws her attention back to face him. Mercy holds his gaze, “Bran, I’m—” _not yours,_ she wants to say, but those words don’t sound right. Instead, she settles on a more diplomatic, “What do you mean?”

“Pack magic and family ties can coexist, regardless of where our loyalties lie. Even though you are outside my pack, you are still a part of my family, Mercy.”

She blinks, dropping her gaze down to Bran’s chin, trying not to show the tears welling in her eyes from the intensity he put to his words. Bran glances down to the silver-blue wolf between them and says, “I may be able to give him some pack strength through my ties to you.”

“Please,” Mercy hears herself say, “help him.”

Once, more than a year ago, Samuel’s wolf had drawn strength from her in order to heal while he was a lone wolf outside of his father’s pack. She still remembers how it had drove her to eat a poor silly quail. Back then, Sam called their bond pack, but that flow of strength felt just like the power rolling into her from Bran now, only backward.

Unlike back then, she knows what pack feels like now, and these bonds feel different to her from the silver tinsel that ties her to the other members of Adam’s Columbia Basin wolves. They aren’t like the golden mating bond that links her soul to Adam either. Instead, an ethereal white rope swirls around her heart, tying her to Bran as well as, she could feel, to Samuel, and surprisingly, to Charles and Anna as well. These family ties bind her to both human and wolf, so that she can sense the white wolf that was Sam separately from the good doctor Samuel. Charles’ wolf still frightens her, so she looks instead back to Bran and notices a dark, yellow-eyed shadow regarding her with cold patience.

Mercy pulls herself away from her view of the smoky white ethereal bonds. She feels them all firmly in place though as strength flows into her from the Marrok’s wolves who really do feel like the closest thing she has to family. Quickly, she focuses on sharing that strength with Adam. It courses through her golden mating bond to the wolf lying before her. All the while she stays aware of that dark shadow hovering close to the surface behind Bran’s hazel eyes.

For a long moment, they wait with baited breath as Mercy struggles to feed Adam their extra strength. Adam’s pulse quickens, and he coughs up more black blood that smells strongly of witchcraft. Mercy clenches her teeth, stubbornly hopeful. “Come on, dammit. Heal.” She barely even cares that both the men around her disapprove of strong language. Adam’s coughs grow louder and harsher.

Bran rises to his feet and backs a few steps away until he wanders outside her attention completely. She knows but doesn’t want to admit that she can guess the reason why. Adam still shows no sign of healing. Her mate grows even more panicked and tense. Adam’s growling resumes between his hacking breaths. Through their bond, his pain streams into her, a shared panic no longer kept at bay. A nervous sweat breaks out across her skin as she clings to him, desperation mixed into their combined scent of his blood, her fear, and black magic.

Suddenly, Adam lifts her up, his body standing shakily on four paws beneath her. She draws back, only to take her weight off his shoulders, but keeps her arms firmly thrown around his neck. She breathes in his fur, crying earnest tears, sobbing without words. Mercy feels his blinding pain flooding their mating bond with anguish. It drives her nearly mad, but it doesn’t matter, not as long as he’s getting better.

They stay still for a time, him standing, his breath growing even, her kneeling before him, holding him close.

Mercy finally begins to open her other senses again. She can hear the wind through the trees, can feel the weight of the summer air on her skin. The smell of rain touches her nose through the lingering scent of blood and fading panic. She opens her eyes to meet Adam’s, only to see the bright yellow eyes of a mindless wolf.

“Adam?”

His silver-blue and black-tipped body trembles beneath her arms, soaked in his own dark blood.

“Adam, can you hear me?” Mercy asks, running her hand through the fur on his back. The wolf does not meet her eyes, does not show any sign of recognition at all. Silently, he springs toward her in a lunge, pushing her back to the ground. His teeth dig into the soft flesh of her stomach.

“Adam? Adam!” She shrieks as the wolf’s teeth rip another bite out of her gut. Mercy throws her arms up in front of her face as her world flashes red with fire and searing pain.

She tries to kick the wolf off of her. Bright light blinds her eyes behind their lids as a vague numbness slowly blocks out the horror of more nips and shreds across her body. The wolf’s claws pin her down. She struggles underneath him as wetness slops from where it shouldn’t. And she screams. She screams through it all so much. Then it stops.

A sight of the wolf that was her mate looms over her. The cold madness in his eyes, unseeing, glints as his jaws dive for her neck. Only, his teeth never reach her throat.

Two hands grab the head of the blue wolf and twist.

Mercy watches in shock as the Marrok rips her mate’s head away from its body and throws the wolf aside. Colder than that unseeing madness, the Marrok looks to the dead with pale gold eyes.

“I never thought, never expected he would go for the kill.” Bran’s voice rasps, his expression off, as though he would show sadness if he could. Instead, his face remains a blank stone canvas, devoid of all personality. “I’m sorry, Mercedes.”

Mercy sucks in a gasp of air, only to be blinded by pain. Her ears block out all sound as though she were underwater. Heat courses through her body, and her air lets out in an unheard, moaning scream. Adam’s bond is gone, gone from her heart, gone from her soul. An icy coldness fills the void as fire courses through her veins.

Bran kneels at her side, brushing her hair out of her face with his bloodstained hand. He bows his head and whispers through her struggle, “Please… Now, if ever, I need you to fight.”


End file.
